Football in Lincoln, 1892

The Lincoln Weekly Herald of November
19, 1892, reported editor J. D. Calhoun's impressions of an early
University of Nebraska football game: "For the first time
in his life, . . . [the editor] saw a game of football last Saturday.
A lot of Kansas Jayhawkers had come up to play our N.U. Grasshoppers,
and some of the boys told us it would be a great chance to see
the college game in all its glory. . . .

"Two groups of stalwart young men--dressed and looking alike,
except that the K.U. wore red stockings and the N.U. wore black--stood
fronting each other in the center of the hard and level field.
K.U. won the toss and took advantage of a hard gale that Kansas
was at the time furnishing. The ball, which looked like a loaf
of Vienna bread, was laid down, the boys stood around it, one
grabbed it and passed it to one behind him. The latter made a
rush, was seized, thrown down and tumbled upon by the entire
teams, while the director of the riot blew a whistle and the
crowd of spectators yelled and blasted tin horns deafeningly.
A spectacled professor said it was fine.

"The pile of wiggling humanity dissolved
slowly and stood up, the ball was put down, grabbed, passed,
and the pyramid of boys in white flannel piled on it. This was
repeated two or three times, and our boys got the ball along
into Kansas. About this time a Jayhawker got hurt and had to
quit, and the game grew correspondingly in interest. Then a Kansas
man got the ball and ran across the grounds, regaining all that
his side had lost. He then formed the foundation of a very lofty
and durable pyramid--but the hope that he would be crushed to
death was not fulfilled. But then Flippin got the ball and handed
it to Mockett and our boys gained ten yards. [George A. Flippin
was the first African American to play football for the University
of Nebraska. E. E. Mockett was the school's first football captain.]
Just then there was a powerful scrimmage and a Jayhawker emerged
with the ball and ran clear around the goal."

Kansas managed to score two touchdowns,
with the final score: "K.U., 12; N.U., 0." The article
concluded of the 1892 University of Nebraska team, "Our
boys are more than a match for Kansas in strength, fully equal
in pluck, possibly inferior in speed, and much behind in team
drill. As individual players they are unquestionably superior,
but do not work as a unit."